Abstract art is not new--it has existed for centuries, even millennia.  But the difference between 20th century and earlier abstraction lies in its current individualistic nature, its lack of connection to a broadly endorsed body of symbolic cultural or religious meaning.  A major reason for its current embattled status is that abstraction, while profoundly expressive of the best of the American spirit, is not well-understood or considered important by a majority of Americans, even those within the art world.

In the Middle Ages, art was a vital link to theology--it presented a moral framework of faith with images of exclusion and damnation, grace and transcendence.   Abstract interlace patterns, exquisitely and formulaically painted by Irish monks, represented centuries of complex linear traditions that absorbed Christian meaning into an ancient symbolic language.  In Arnhem Land, Australia, crosshatch patterns, still used by Aboriginal artists, identify clans and herald the spiritual presence of ancestors in the artwork.  The Peruvian Shipibo artisan paints lines on pots reflecting inner visions of healing and creativity, from her own mind or the tribal shaman.  Each of these bodies of art maintains a specific language of abstract imagery that is used to perpetuate and support the meaning of a very particular and culturally endorsed belief system.

In Western society, Renaissance figuration long eclipsed more abstract traditions, but the 20th century re-emergence and evolution of abstraction, particularly after World War II, has been fueled and 

perpetuated not by canon but by a very American strain of individualism--the artist as heroic pursuant of life, liberty and if not happiness, at least a singular vision.

Of course, this freedom of expression means that one abstract artist may consider her abstract paintings to be of deep emotional or spiritual import with specific symbolic meaning, while another may think, "what you see is what you see."  Indeed, many abstract artists ascribe to their own art no deep or particular meaning at all--their work is an exploration of visual concepts, which is quite enough, thank you.  Steve Wheeler, often connected to the Indian Space painters, had no interest in being part of any group philosophy and was fiercely independent about the eccentric meanings within his work.

No Irish monk would have been fiercely independent about the meaning and deployment of his linear designs.  Making art was an act of faith, the rules were specific and following them led to spiritual grace.  But in the 20th century we diverge at will.  We innovate--or try to.  Making abstract art is a lonely pursuit--spirituality may or may not be important aim, but finding individual expression is, whether that leads to grace or not.

A great part of abstraction's attraction in our century has been its freedom to break apart old structures rather than preserve them--it is more an open frontier waiting to be discovered rather than a map leading the viewer into esoteric meaning.  Even in situations where specific theories evolved along with the imagery, as in Mondrian's interpretation of

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